Dividend investing isn’t for the easily bored. Rather than reacting to every last headline, the successful income investor instead must be satisfied with settling in, letting the cash roll in for decades, and allowing both dividend growth and compounding returns to do their thing.

And importantly, you have to be able to put up with companies like Leggett & Platt (LEG).

Apple (AAPL) investors have bathed in excess media coverage for the past few weeks as iPhone 6/iPhone 6 Plus madness has reached a fever pitch. I could probably go the rest of my life without editing another Alibaba (BABA) story and not have a single regret.

Leggett & Platt? It … um…

It lost marketing executive Mark Quinn back in August.

It went ex-dividend a couple weeks ago.

It got an analyst upgrade last week (hey!).

Frankly, I’m stunned that Leggett & Platt’s Google Finance page hasn’t started growing moss.

No, the story behind LEG stock is that for the most part, there is no story. This is the type of stodgy stock that produces lasting performance and reliable dividend growth because it doesn’t hinge on any trends — it produces what the world needs, turns off the lights on the way out, and shows back up to work at 9 a.m. the next morning.

And that’s good enough for me.

Leggett & Platt — Sleepy Stock, Exciting Income

Leggett & Platt’s homepage tells you exactly what you need to know about the company, which is “our products are all around you.” You might not know Leggett’s name, but you’ve come across its products — in your home (bedding coils, carpet pads), your car (vehicle shelving, docking stations), and at work (retail store fixtures, office furniture). Plus, LEG provides industrial products such as wiring and tubing.

Reading about its business is a viable substitute for valium … and that’s precisely what you should love about this company.

These are products that everyone needs, and that no one ever thinks about. That puts it at the whims of the broader economy, certainly — the more spending we see by consumers and industry, the better off LEG is going to be, and vice versa — but that also insulates Leggett & Platt largely insulated from many other stock-shaking events like new product releases and other disruptive technology developments.

How stable is Leggett & Platt as a result?

LEG stock has paid out a regular dividend every year since 1939, and has recorded dividend growth every year for decades, earning it a spot among our Dependable Dividend Stocks, which includes more familiar dividend stalwarts such as Coca-Cola (KO), Procter & Gamble (PG) and Exxon Mobil (XOM). In fact, it’s practically royalty on the list — only 11 other S&P 500 companies boast a longer streak than LEG’s 43 consecutive years of improved payouts, and it currently boasts the eighth-highest yield on the list at 3.5%.

Financials are just as uninterestingly reliable.

LEG has grown revenues by low-single-digit percentages for the past few years, and Wall Street expects Leggett to really let things rip with roughly 5% growth this year and next. Earnings growth has come at an average 14.75% clip over the past five years, and guess what — analysts are looking for an average of 15% for the next five.

The cash situation is also attractive. Last year, LEG generated about $340 million in free cash flow to go against $125 million paid in dividends, and the company also sits on a decent stash of about $300 million in cash. The company is a little leveraged, given its debt-to-equity ratio of 1.6, but interest payments aren’t exactly breaking the bank.

Meanwhile, LEG’s payout ratio stands around 60% based on projected 2015 earnings — not low, but certainly plenty of room for Leggett to continue its practice of slowly and steadily upping its payout. LEG stock’s last dividend increase came in September, with the quarterly distribution going from 30 cents to 31 — a modest 3% improvement. All told, LEG has boosted its dividend by about 20% since 2010, which doesn’t exactly make Leggett a cascading river of cash, but it’s far from miserly.

Plus, Leggett & Platt is spending cash on shareholders elsewhere — the company expects to buy back some 5 million to 7 million of its shares this year (the float sits at 137.2 million currently), and spent $77 million repurchasing LEG stock doing so last quarter.

My only concern with Leggett right now? It might be a bit too frothy. In addition to its shareholder-friendly cash strategy, the stock has returned some 13% this year to nearly double the market, and shares sit at all-time highs. At current prices, LEG stock trades at 25 times trailing earnings and 17 times next year’s — a bit more than its anticipated growth rate.

Bottom Line

If you’re a pessimist like me, you’re probably just waiting for a correction to come and wipe the smirk off Wall Street’s face. Of course, if you’re an opportunist, too, that would be the perfect time to enter LEG stock for the long haul; a drop of just 10% would have LEG stock trading at a forward price-to-earnings ratio more befitting its long-term growth rate.

But “long term” is the key here. LEG stock is a buy on the expectations of reliable performance and dividend growth for decades.

So once you hop into Leggett, feel free to punch the cruise control and just check in every now and then.

Kyle Woodley is the Deputy Managing Editor of InvestorPlace.com. As of this writing, he was long KO. Follow him on Twitter at @KyleWoodley.